Lady in Red

My best friend/college roommate was just here for a three-week visit and wanted to bring me presents, so I asked for yarn dye. Vira brought me lots and lots of Kool-Aid from the states, so we had to have a dying party. Even though we had five different flavors, they were all various shades of red and pink, so we decided to go for some of the most intense reds that I have ever seen. I'm still really new to hand-dyeing, but its amazing what I can do with a pitcher of hot water, Kool-Aid, yarn, and a bathtub. It didn't take that long, but the result was three beautiful skeins of red, in some subtle varieties. All the yarn came from Ingrid over at Yarn Workshop. The few times that I've attempted hand-dyeing has been with her yarns, and they are so user friendly and absorb the dye really nicely. I think that I might be hooked! Vira helped a lot, and it was her first time dyeing yarn, so I think that I am going to use one or two of these to make something for her. She just moved to NYC, so she is going to need fabulous knitwear come winter.

Instead of just taking a plain picture, I was really inspired by the reds in the skeins to find all the favorite things in my life that are red, which turned out to be a lot! My favorite cookies come in red package, one of my softest scarves, cranberry juice, nail polish, and my MAC lipstick. I really like how this photo turned out, so this could become a regular thing. I will have to expand more on my stock of hand-dye as well then!

Vests

This week I have started three new projects, all of them being vests, all of them being pullovers, and all of them bottom-up. Two of the patterns I'm working on are from CanaryKnits, and so far I am loving her patterns. Most of them are free, easy to read, and would look great on most body types. The two that I have cast of her's are the SexyVesty and Corona, and both are coming along quite well. I've finished the main part of the body of the SexyVesty and gotten a good solid 6 inches of the Corona knitted. The other vest that I'm working on is Green Day by Mari Muinonen, for which I found a translation of.

SexyVesty is going along really well for me- finally I've found something that is worthy of my green malabrigo that I have been saving forever. My favorite thing about this pattern is the lace pattern; it looks like its argyle, but without all the tedious colorwork that you would have to put into an argyle sweater. Now that I've reached the point where it comes time to do the front piece, I find that things are getting a little sticky. I need to put it down for a while so things can click in my brain.

So then we can move on to Corona, also designed by CanaryKnits. I would consider this more of a hoodie than a vest, and the cable details on the collar make me so happy. I'm a simple kind of girl, and this little bit of detail is just perfect for me. Right now I'm knitting it in red, using two balls of red sock yarn held together. I'm really loving the fabric that is being created by doing this, and I can see myself using this pattern over and over again.

The vest from Mari Muinonen is progressing, but not as quickly as I would like. I think that I got caught up with the other two projects, and I've ignored this one for a little too long. I'm also not as happy as I could be with the cable details on this one, but not unhappy enough to frog it. But its also simple enough to put off to the side for a little. Its what I like to do, have several projects going on at once so I can move around when I get bored. I'm a bit of an ADD knitter. As soon as I can borrow another camera, pictures will follow.